Britain's Biometic Screening 'Causing Airport Delays'

Passengers face massive delays at airports because of problems with new iris-recognition equipment, a Tory MP claimed today.

Ben Wallace said an official report on trials of the technology showed it had failed half of its assessments.

And he said it was further proof that Government plans to introduce ID cards were ``running off the tracks'' and could prove unworkable.

But the Home Office said the initial problems had been dealt with and the system - now in operation at several major airports - was a success.

Thousands more members of the public had signed up than expected, a spokeswoman said, and iris recognition remained ``an option'' for ID cards.

Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: ``The pilot failed half its assessments: it wasn't available when it was needed at the right level; when the system crashed, it took over eight hours to fix.

``Iris recognition is one of the main planks of the biometrics the Government said made their ID scheme foolproof.

``In an answer to me, the minister said that iris recognition had been chosen as a biometric because it outperformed all others.

``In this case, it doesn't.''

Home Secretary John Reid last month dropped plans for a massive single database to hold records for the national identity card scheme.

Three existing systems will be used instead to keep costs down.

Mr Wallace said: ``This is a major plank of the scheme and to lose one of these biometrics is unfortunate but if you couple it with John Reid's U-turn on the system architecture... I would say that this scheme is certainly running off the tracks and, at worst, is becoming unworkable.

``I would like to know if the Government is actually going to continue to use iris recognition as one of its biometrics, what it is going to do to address the problems in the pilot scheme?''

Passengers would pay the price for the lack of ``proper rigorous testing'', he said.

``Millions of people are going to arrive at Heathrow and wait in a queue because the system has crashed for over eight hours.''

The Home Office spokeswoman said the Government remained committed to the use of biometrics for ID cards such as fingerprints and facial images.

Iris scans remain an option.

She conceded that there had been problems but said the point of conducting trials was to identify such issues.

Delays with the introduction of the technology had been caused by the need to redeploy staff in the wake of the July 7 terror attacks on London in 2005.

And the supplier is also now devoting greater resources to maintenance and service delivery to deal with other problems, she said.

``Any new problems that arise will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

``But the overall experience has been that the number of people enrolling has been higher than expected.''

More than 50,000 people have signed up, with 150,000 people passing through the new-style security checks last year.

The technology is in use at Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester airports and will soon be extended to Birmingham, she added.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: ``Yet again the Government has tried to bury another piece of bad news about its doomed identity cards project.

``With each successive announcement it becomes more obvious that the technology simply isn't good enough to sustain such an expensive, illiberal and unnecessary scheme.''

A Home Office spokesman said: ``Iris (Iris Recognition Immigration System) immigration controls are working well at Gatwick and at the other airports where it has been introduced. Passengers are not experiencing delays.

``If Iris does experience problems, passengers are still able to use the usual passport control. Information from the past three weeks also shows that the highest number of passengers using Iris in one day at Gatwick was 85.

``The UK is at the forefront of plans to use the latest technology in immigration controls and Iris is an example of success in this area.

``It has exceeded the first of its targets, with over 40,000 enrolments by December 2006 and is on track to exceed the next target of 60,000 enrolments by April 2007. There have been 185,000 crossings to date.''

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